Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a robust analysis tool that you can use to monitor and analyze your traffic on the Buzz website.
Note: Google's Universal Analytics has been deprecated. If you haven't updated to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), you must do so to continue receiving traffic data regarding your Buzz site.
First, get a Google Analytics account by registering with Google. To configure in Buzz, enter Google Analytics 4 measurement ID (provided by Google) in Domain settings.
Note
Buzz displays this card in Domain settings only if the Google Analytics is enabled for the entire deployment. If the card is not visible, contact your Buzz provider to enable.
If you are an Agilix business partner who hosts your own Buzz deployment, you should configure your Google Analytics in your deployment configuration only (available only for select partners).
Google Analytics in domains and subdomains
Once configured, Buzz traffic data begins flowing to your Google Analytics account at Google.
Your account receives data for your domain and all descendant domains because the ID configuration is inherited by all descendent domains, so you shouldn't configure descendent domains with the same ID.
If a descendent domain administrator configures with a different ID, then traffic data in that domain is sent to the its account only, and data in the parent domain is sent to the parent domain's GA account. The data is not reported to both accounts.
What data is sent to Google Analytics?
Buzz reports when end users view a page, so that you can measure the number of views you had for each page. This information is sent whenever the browser URL changes.
For example: when a teacher clicks a Gradebook tab, the URL changes and data is sent.
Actions that don't cause a URL change in Buzz, like many popup windows, send no data.
Sending pageviews
Most Buzz URLs include IDs that are unique to each end-user or organization. Before sending these URLs to Google Analytics, Buzz usually replaces the ID with a generic name, so that all pageviews in GA are grouped together.
For example: the actual Gradebook URL might be teacher/274346/gradebook/grades, but Buzz sends teacher/:enrollmentid/gradebook/grades to Google Analytics to group all Gradebook pageviews together.
For accurate data, configure Enhanced measurement > Page views
In GA4, you can configure Enhanced measurements for your property. In order to accurately track page views in Buzz, you must disable event tracking for Page changes based on browser history events in the Page view enhancement.
To do so:
- Follow Google's documentation to navigate to and edit Enhanced measurements.
- Under Page views, click Show advanced settings, and uncheck the Page changes based on browser history events box.
- Save.
Sending custom dimensions
Google Analytics automatically tracks a lot of information about each pageview, such as geographic region, browser type, and device type. You can create up to 20 custom dimensions for things it doesn't track. See Custom Dimensions and Metrics for more details.
Buzz sends only one dimension by default always as dimension1. The value of the custom dimension is the currently authenticated user ID (if it exists). If the user is not signed in, the dimension1 value is empty. You can use this custom dimension to further track and analyze a single user's behavior using GA analysis, filtering, and reporting tools.